Employee Relations: An International Journal

Tlaiss, Hayfaa A.; Martin, Pascal; Hofaidhllaoui, Mahrane

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-07-2016-0130

PurposeWhile multinational corporations appear to understand the importance of talent retention (TR) for maintaining their competitive advantage, they continue to struggle to identify and develop strategies to retain talent. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how talent is identified, and more importantly, how it is retained within the context of a multinational firm in France.Design/methodology/approachThis study is exploratory in nature and capitalizes on a case study methodology through which in-depth, open-ended interviews with partners and managers were conducted.FindingsThe findings suggest that TR is approached in an arbitrary and ad hoc manner. They also reveal that TR practices are mostly motivated by the direct costs associated with a failure to retain talent, and less with the indirect costs and loss of tacit knowledge. Of considerable interest is the finding that despite the use of utilitarian power via incentives to promote TR, the focus is mostly on normative power via workplace culture and organizational norms.Originality/valueThis study is the first to explore TR in the context of one of the Big Four accounting firms in France and among the few to extend the use of Etzioni’s (1975) model of compliance to TR research and to a French context. The originality of this study is also derived from its ability to explain the factors impacting TR, how talent is retained in practice, and the gap between the ideals and reality.

Bohle, Philip; Knox, Angela; Noone, Jack; Mc Namara, Maria; Rafalski, Julia; Quinlan, Michael

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-07-2016-0149

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between work organisation, bullying and intention to leave (ITL) in the Australian hospitality industry, using pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure (PDR) to measure work organisation.Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional survey data were collected from 72 workers in Australian accommodation hotels. They were aged 20-65 years (M=38.26, SD=12.60) and 57.1 per cent were female. The proposed path model was tested with the Mplus (v.7) statistical package using Hayes’ (2009) procedure for mediation analysis.FindingsThere were positive bivariate correlations between all variables. The path model indicated that disorganisation and regulatory failure had direct positive associations with bullying. Financial pressure and bullying had direct positive associations with ITL.Research limitations/implicationsThe small sample may not be representative and the cross-sectional design and self-report data risk common method variance effects and preclude attributions of causality. Future studies should use more representative samples and longitudinal designs to address common method variance issues and facilitate causal inferences.Originality/valueBullying and turnover are significant problems in the hospitality industry, but the contribution of work organisation variables is poorly understood. The present study provides promising preliminary evidence on the potential role of PDR as an antecedent of both bullying and ITL.

Riva, Egidio

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-10-2016-0196

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline and assess the role of industrial relations in introducing work-family-related policies and investigate the drivers, nature and scope of contract provisions that were bargained in the following domains: flexible working arrangements, leave schemes, care services and other supportive arrangements. Analyses draw on information filed in a unique and restricted access repository, the SEcond-level Collective Bargaining Observatory (OCSEL) held by Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori (CISL), one of the major trade union organizations in Italy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents and examines, by means of descriptive statistics and content analysis, available information on 285 company-level agreements around work-family-related issues that were signed in Italy between January 2012 and December 2015, in the aftermath of the great recession.FindingsWork-family issues do not seem to be a major bargaining concern. The availability of specific arrangements is mostly limited to the domain of working time flexibility and it is not quite innovative in its contents. Besides, there is little evidence that the mutual gains rationale is embedded in collective bargaining in the field. However, mature and well-established labour relations result in more innovative and strategic company-level bargaining that is also conducive to work-family-related arrangements.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample is not representative. Thus, the results obtained in this study cannot be extended to make predictions and conclusions about the population of collective agreements negotiated and signed in Italian companies in the period under scrutiny.Originality/valueResearch on the industrial relations context that lies behind the design and implementation of work-family workplace arrangements is still limited. Furthermore, the evidence is inconclusive. This manuscript intends to address this research gap and provide a much more nuanced understanding.

Ferreira, Aristides I.; Martinez, Luis F.; Rodrigues, Rosa I.; Ilhéu, Carla

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-05-2016-0097

PurposeResearch has shown that corporate policies affect customers’ decisions. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the influence of human resources (HR) practices on investment intentions in the financial sector.Design/methodology/approachData were obtained from 548 managers and management students. Participants were presented real news regarding two banks with contrasting HR practices. Subsequently, they had to choose – from a given virtual amount – their investment allocations.FindingsResults primarily showed that participants decided to invest more money in the bank which was more profitable to them, regardless of that bank’s HR practice. But, most importantly, when the news was specifically addressed to the in-group (managers), participants decided to invest more money in the bank with the HR practice by which they identified more, although being less profitable to them.Originality/valueThe findings demonstrate the urgency for organizations to manage effectively their HR practices, as they serve as a vehicle to corporate reputation, thus affecting the relationship with the stakeholders and investors’ decisions.

Williams, Colin C.; Kayaoglu, Aysegul

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-10-2016-0189

PurposeUntil now, there has been scant evidence on the proportion and characteristics of employees working without a written contract or terms of employment. To begin to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of employees without written contracts or terms of employment in the European Union (EU), examining whether they are unevenly distributed across countries and EU regions, and whether it is vulnerable population groups who are more likely to be without such written contracts.Design/methodology/approachA 2013 Eurobarometer survey comprising 11,025 face-to-face interviews with employees in the 28 member states of the EU (EU-28) is reported.FindingsThe finding is that it is less socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and more firm size, institutional environment and spatial factors that are important in explaining the prevalence of employment without a written contract. Thus, governments should address not individuals but rather the formal institutional failings and asymmetry between civic and state morality, in order to reduce the level of employment without a written contract, and focus their attention on smaller firms, larger towns and Southern European countries, especially Cyprus, Malta and Portugal.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research needs to evaluate whether and how the conditions of employment (e.g. wage rates, health and safety conditions, holiday entitlements) of employees without written contracts or terms of employment differ to their equivalents who have written contracts or terms of employment. This will reveal the implications of workers not being issued with written contracts or terms of employment.Originality/valueThis is one of the first extensive evaluations of the prevalence and distribution of employees without written contracts or terms of employment.

De Spiegelaere, Stan; Ramioul, Monique; Van Gyes, Guy

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-02-2016-0034

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify different job types in the Belgian electricity sector and their relations with employee outcomes such as work engagement and innovative work behaviour (IWB).Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a combination of latent profile analysis and relative operating characteristics (ROC) analysis.FindingsDepending on the job resources and demands, five different job types are identified corresponding largely to the Karasek and Theorell (1990) job types. Their relation with the outcomes is not parallel with low-strain jobs performing best for work engagement, and active jobs for IWB.Research limitations/implicationsThe combination of methods used in this study increases significantly the ease of communication of the findings, yet an external benchmark for the ROC analysis would be preferable.Practical implicationsTo foster engagement and IWB with employees one should focus on the job content and only increase demands if they are combined with sufficient resources.Originality/valueThis research is the first in its kind that relates latent job types with different employee outcomes using a combination of latent profile and ROC analysis.

Wang, Zhen; Xu, Haoying

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-07-2016-0140

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how and when service-oriented high-performance work systems (HPWS) impact employees’ service performance.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data was obtained from 568 frontline service employees and their supervisors across 92 branches of a large bank in China. The hypotheses were tested with hierarchical linear modeling.FindingsThe results suggested that service-oriented HPWS affected employee service performance via its simultaneous impact on employees’ service ability, customer orientation, and service climate perception. Moreover, the indirect effects of HPWS on service performance via service ability and customer orientation were significant only when service-oriented HPWS consensus was high.Practical implicationsTo elicit employees’ provision of excellent service, organizations should invest in service-oriented HRM practices to improve all of their service ability, customer orientation, and service climate perception, making them able to, willing to, and having the chance to perform high-quality service performance. Organizations should also pay attention to the variability in employees’ HRM perceptions within the same group.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the extant literature by presenting a more complete understanding of how service-oriented HPWS elicits employee service performance, and when this HPWS is and is not effective.

Luo, Siqi

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-08-2016-0167

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how different actors interacted to influence local labour legislation in the case of the collective bargaining regulations in Guangdong Province, China, using long-term observation and in-depth interviews.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the case study method to investigate the process of local labour law-making in China. First, the primary data focus on a series of in-depth interviews conducted in 2014. In Guangdong Province, the author collected the thoughts of three well-informed provincial and municipal-level trade union officials, one government official, five scholars and lawyers, four enterprise union chairs and three labour activists. Second, these interviews are triangulated with legislative documents and the author’s observation of three public meetings. Held at various times from 2011 to 2014, these meetings were organized to discuss different legislative drafts on collective bargaining.FindingsThe six-year process of adopting collective bargaining legislation in Guangdong presents a complex picture as different actors joined the process at different times and engaged in different ways. Labour strikes were a crucial force in drawing the attention of both the local and central governments and functioned as a means to repeatedly make collective labour relations a policy “issue” for the government, particularly in 2010. Another actor – the local official trade unions – played a decisive role by not only putting the “issue” into the decision-making agenda, but by also providing policy alternatives based on workers’ bargaining practices. At the same time, business associations, using slow economic growth as an excuse, exerted their economic leverage to pressure for suspension of the first two rounds of legislation. Nevertheless, the new political leadership assuming office in 2013, using an adoptive but restrained logic, pushed for the enactment of the compromise regulation.Research limitations/implicationsGuangdong Province and its emerging collective labour regimes are not representatives of China, but they are at the frontier of the labour field. Thus, this case study was an example of the “most dynamic” interaction with the “most participative” actors and perhaps the “most pro-labour” of China’s official trade unions.Originality/valueThis paper is original and draws special attention to the dynamic process of the local law-making and the rationales of different actors in China.

Chen, Pei-Chen; Wang, Ming-Chao; Fang, Shih-Chieh

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-06-2016-0124

PurposeBased on agency perspective on temporary agency workers, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between firms’ agency problems and agency cost on agency workers; moreover, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are considered in seeking to understand how they moderate this relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing the Hsinchu Science Park directory of corporate affiliations as a sample frame, the authors adopted a paired questionnaire which included two parts in order to consider the possible problem of common method variances. The first part is completed by the manager of the firms and the second part is completed by his/her temporary agency workers. Finally, 94 firms completed questionnaires, providing a total sample of 94 R&D managers and 458 temporary agency workers. The rate of participation was 31.65 percent.FindingsUsing a questionnaire survey of 94 high-tech firms, from which a total of 94 R&D managers and 458 temporary agency workers participated, the results show that firms’ agency problems have a positive influence on the agency cost of monitoring temporary agency workers. In addition, while this relationship is negatively moderated by extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation has a non-significant moderating effect.Originality/valueThe managers of firms should consider not only the short-term flexibility of employing temporary agency workers, but also the long-term cultivation of promoting great agency workers. This could maximize the efficiency of the interaction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Of course, the firms should think about how to reduce the agency problems created by goal conflict, information asymmetry and risk sharing with temporary agency workers, because this could also provide a chance for the firms to decrease agency costs spent on monitoring.

Klikauer, Thomas

2017 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/ER-03-2017-0060